Personally I like not having to either write my own model functions which just map back to sql, or having to write a boilerplate php to do parameterized queries correctly. Eloquent abstracts enough of that crap out of my way i can focus on the logic.
Sincerely someone rewriting an 'old' php app that is just arrays and queries to something using models and eloquent, what a game changer
Eloquent is one of the worst ORM I worked with. It works until it doesn't, there is too much magic and it mixes SQL/Entity in the same class. Since then I use doctrine and/or repository pattern which makes the code more extensible and testable, it's also trivial to do your own raw SQL request and map it to your entity if you don't want to rely on an ORM.
Sincerely someone rewriting an 'old' php app that is just arrays and queries to something using models and eloquent, what a game changer